September 8, 2025 • 15 mins
This is another exploration of bad idea history. At one point, humans got really into consuming and surrounding themselves with irradiated materials. This idea stands out because the origins can be traced back to a clear starting point and "logic." FYI: Don't consume or put yourself (or anyone else) near radium. We'll explain why.
Become a member and support the show: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Links and References:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Become a member and support the show: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Links and References:
- https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9912414468002121
- https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/what-is-radiation/ionising-radiation
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
to Why we do what we do many I am
your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
(00:25):
and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk about
the things they have done and we're like, why did
we do that thing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And that's a sure why we did what we did? Yeah,
part of this podcast. The subtext of this podcast is
why we don't do what we used to do.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That is also true, and so if you're joining us
for the first time, welcome. This is a short form
episode type we do called a mini and they come
out on Mondays Mini Mondays. We also release full length
episodes closer to an hour. I think most of them
are around an hour. That those come out every Wednesday,
and sometimes we will release what we call nostalgia episodes,
which are reruns of past episodes in place of our
(01:01):
sort of normal release and that is when we update
a topic that's been out on something we recorded at
least five years ago. So that's things that we do.
But today we're tackling a very interesting topic. This is
a weird thing that humans used to do. Oh, hold on,
before I do that, I've got more preamble, which is
that if you'd like to support us, you can leave
us a rating and review, like, and subscribe, Join us
(01:23):
on Patreon, pick up some merch at our merch store.
Go tell a friend. I'll talk more about that at
the end of this discussion. Is there anything I'm missing
before we jump into our topic here?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
No, I think that covers it.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, Sorry, that was a little rambly, everybody. I'm usually
more eloquence than this. Now that's not true. This is
pretty This is pretty powerfully corded, all right. Anyway, everything
we're going to talk about in this discussion today is
really based on an entry in a book called Quackery,
A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
Sure by Nate Peterson and Lydia King. It's a very silly,
(01:57):
whimsical book. They usually take some topic and then they
sort of understand the history of it. They often will
impact them in the context of a story, and this
one I chose specifically because it actually has a fairly
clear origin, like where did this begin? And sort of
understanding why this came to be in the first place,
whereas a lot of the other ones are sort of
like it's just the thing that people discovered and then
(02:18):
they're like, hey, let's just try it out and we'll
run with it. Right, this one's a little bit more clear.
So anyway, let's dive into this discussion here.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, so, once upon a time we got really excited
about exposing ourselves to heaping loads of ionizing radiation. It
was a bad idea, and we're going to tell that story.
I will say, as a superhero fan, this sounds like
the way to go, right, Like, you get exposed to
radiation and you're going to get superpowers. Tell everybody right now,
that is not at all what happens.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, so let's unpack radiation and we'll help describe why
they think they can use this for superhero comics and
why it doesn't work that way. Radiation. Just as a
brief understanding here. I actually wrote several paragraphs trying to
explain this, and I decided that's really outside of the
context we're trying to do with this, and so I
got rid of them. But yeah, I want to at
least leave you with an understanding of what's happening here.
(03:05):
This is essentially energy that is hitting your body, or
I mean it just travels through space, but it can
hit your body on its way traveling through space. But
it's strong enough to detach the electrons in your body
from atoms or molecules in your body, which can cause
chemical changes, including damage to our DNA. The symptoms of
(03:25):
this can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, fevers, inflammation, headaches, fatigue,
and eventually hair loss, bone marrow failure, which sounds horrible, yeah,
neurological problems, blisters, gastro intestinal damage, and death. It is
a horrible, horrible way to go. Now, I think the
idea here is because it can mess with your DNA,
(03:48):
you can sort of loosely logic your way to the
idea that like, maybe you get lucky in what it
does is rearrange your DNA to be something much more
powerful than it should have been, and maybe turn you
into something that's like an altered version of yourself, albeit
with bulletproof skin. Yeah so far nope, Yeah, so far, Nope,
it has gotten that lucky. All it has done is
(04:10):
shred their bodies from the inside out. So yeah, it
is a terrible, terrible way to die, and it will
not make you superhero. But that is what radiation is.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So let's talk about Eben Byers, a wealthy industrialist socialite,
which sounds like one hundred percent a character from Great
Gatsby and a ladies man. Yeah, in early nineteen hundred,
so he's right there, right.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, he's a great Gatsby.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Maybe he is a great Gatsby. He had won the
US Amateur Golf Championship of nineteen o six, which is
just wild to think that golf is that old. Now,
during a late night Ruckus party in late November nineteen
twenty seven, he fell and injured his arm.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He did, and that's no big thing, it'll go away.
But his pain lingered much longer than seemed normal. Evidently
even for a then forty seven year old man. His
private physicians were stumped. The remedies were failing to provide
relief to his arm injury, and because of his injury,
he was having all kinds of problems. This guy was
(05:09):
truly suffering a way that most of us cannot understand.
He couldn't really play golf as well as he used to.
His loopado game was significantly compromised. I mean, really tragic stuff. Yeah,
now not to worry. We've got good news. These physicians
could double dip. They were also getting a generous seventeen
percent kickback to prescribe the hot new drug on the market, Ratithor,
(05:31):
manufactured by Bailey Radium Laboratory in New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
By the way, I don't want to eat anything out
of a radium laboratory, but.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
No, you shouldn't. Also sounds straight out of the game
Fallout or the TV show.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Like, yeah, Rada Thor is for sure evil.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yes that, Like you see that and you're like, oh yeah, Fallout,
this is a thing that will definitely kill you.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Now, this wonder drug promised
to contain two microcuries of radium, which was the exciting
new medica and the promised cures for everything from dyspepsia
to high blood pressure to impotence to apparently broken arms.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yep, that was the idea here Byers took the medicine
and lo and behold, his arms started to show improvement. Amazing.
He could not have been happier. I mean, this the
miracle medicine that really got him back on his feet.
Sure playing golf, finding partners, partners, hiring partners, maybe he
began drinking three bottles of Ratathor per day starting in
(06:32):
December of nineteen twenty seven, so remember it's November. He's
injured himself after four weeks of not healing, which of
course everyone knows that broken arms typically heal inside of
four weeks, he starts drinking this Ratathor and he's starting
to notice improvements in his arm. Bully for him. By
nineteen thirty one, just four years later, actually more like
(06:52):
three years and some change later, he had consumed a
radiation dosage similar to receiving a thousand X rays from
his consumption of Ratathor. The number one thousand is high,
It's very high. It's that's too many X rays. That's
too many X rays. You don't want to receive the
many X rays. One is like enough for them to
(07:13):
put a lead coat over you. So a thousand is
is simply too much, and so we must break and
inject some ads in the form of radiation.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
No Ratathor. Here's ada thor.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
All right, Yeah, yours was much better than mine. Adathor. Okay, great,
all right, that was our ad break. So we're back,
all right.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So Buyer's was no greedy man he wanted all of
his friends to enjoy the bounty of health that Ratathor
could bestow on them, and he began sending cases of
help to people in the circles with notes of enthusiastic praise.
It could not imagine sending effectively a radiation bomb to
like anybody, like, hey, hey, you're my best friend here,
just drink all of this. Drink one thousand x rays.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and so he managed to consume a impressive Now again,
remind I don't know if we actually said this up front.
He was prescribed like a bottle of this a day.
He's like, this is so amazing, I'm drinking three a day.
He managed to consume fifteen hundred bottles of Ratathor by
nineteen thirty one, at which time he was absolutely riddled
(08:22):
with radiation based cancers. His kidneys had completely failed, his
brain had absessed, meaning that he was kind of not
really conscious of what was going on anymore, which was
probably for the best for him. At this point. Sure,
most of his jaw had been removed and attempts to
slow the spread of cancer. Remember, he's ingesting this through
his mouth, so that's going to get the heavy dose
of cancer. There. Sure, And even his skull was covered
(08:44):
in holes from the radiation. Like he literally had holes
in his skull, which is supposed to keep your brain in.
Just in case you didn't know that, he was gaunt
and hollowed out. He weighed a scant ninety seven pounds.
Even his bones were dangerous radioactive. He was so radioactive,
radioactive that when he died, he had to be buried
(09:06):
in a lead line coffin. And even as part of this,
when they did dig him up later, he was still
so radioactive he was too dangerous to studies. They had
to put him back. That is wild.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So let's back up a little bit though, because I
think it's important to have some more historical context. So
radium had been discovered and isolated by Marie Curiy and
Pierre Currie and nineteen oh two. They also discovered that
radium could cause deep flesh burns and reason this might
be effective at destroying cancer.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, and they're right, I mean it is. It is
effective at destroying cancer. If you point radiation at cancer,
it will destroy the growing mass of cells. Sure, at
the time, there was nothing to treat cancer, so like
anything that suddenly offered a promise of a future, like
some glimmer of hope was desperately embraced by everyone. So
(09:54):
they're like, yeah, that's like we finally have something. Oh
my god, this is so excited, like the world is saved.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Sure exactly. However, there are two major problems. Right. One,
you have to aim it at the cancer, like it
has to be. It has to be given direction. Without aiming,
it just destroys everything it gets near. It's like using
ten sticks of dynamite to kill rodents in your house,
Like it'll work, but you won't have a house anymore. Two,
the other problem is the fact that it can destroy
cancer by burning it should inherently suggest that it should
(10:23):
be used in a specific, targeted way, not ingested and
allowed to spread throughout the body because you know, like
we again want to give it direction.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you're going to do surgery, like, well,
we know that knives can help get to the injured organ,
so let's just cut open all parts of your body,
Like sure, no, probably just the part way you need
to do the surgery, right exactly. We're not just trying
to de skin someone, right, that's bad, But anyway, logic
is hard and capitalism is very opportunistic, so opportunistic as
(10:52):
to be at the level of self destructive. Instead, what
they saw is can help with cancer, must be good
for everything, and the or the better.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Sure, so they sold home and even portable water tanks
infused with radium so you can get your lethal dose
of radiation at your convenience. So these were like household items.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, yeah, they had a fun name. I forgot what
it was now, but it was like a water cooler
that was a radiated water.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They even they being like the opportunistic capitalists and entrepreneurs here,
they even established radium spas with radium infused baths and
radium gas pumped into the room where you could go
get this amazing dose of radiation. There was an entire
cottage industry of self starting entrepreneurs who traveled the country
hawking radium medicines to treat whatever you said your problem
(11:44):
just was. Fortunately, though, there is a silver lining here,
because radium was insanely expensive, so most of the time
they were lying about it containing any radium whatsoever, and
they and in doing so, they actually saved hundreds or
even thousands of lives in the process because they're charlatans.
So in this one instance, it was good to be
a charlatan because otherwise people would have died.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, finally, in the nineteen thirties, the
FDA and the FTC launched an investigation and shut down
production of radium, likely saving thousands of lives or more.
Now you don't have radium like that are like purposefully
put in products at this point, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, So it's like time and the Sun was fairly brief,
like it was kind of a five six year sort
of thing where it was it was really hot on
the market. Maybe a little longer, but they did figure
out within a generation at least that this was a
very dangerous thing that was killing people. Yeah, and to
be clear, like radiation, as we said, it is an
(12:41):
actual part of medical treatment and specifically cancer treatment used
today like this will still happen. However, again, when it
is used, it is highly precisely targeted at the cancer
and very controlled doses. The way that they sort of
thought about this earlier was like, hey, you've got cancer,
there a point radiation at it, like like put radiation
next to it, and I'm like, yeah, but what about
(13:02):
everything that's around the cancer, like that's also getting destroyed, yeah,
and also spreading more cancer because you now are destroyed,
You're you are now destroying the healthy cells in places
where you don't need to be applying it, and that
is actually then causing cancer. Yeah, so it had the
opposite problem as well that it. Yeah, anyway, that's the
(13:23):
time that humans learned to love radiation.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Briefly, what a wild time, man, Yeah, oh man, to
be in the world of the Great Gatsby would be
so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So anyway, we got to the y, which was that
they understood that it helped with cancer, therefore must be
good with everything, and therefore this guy died of acute
radiation sickness in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
All right, anything you'd like to add or anything that
I forgot before we wrap this one up.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Toxic Avenger is coming out, so.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, oh man, that looks insane. Ye. Not affiliated with
Marvel In case you hear the word Avengure and think.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Ye, yeah, it's Peter Inglish and that's Peter Diningklige and
Kevin Bacon. So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, And I'm not sure if you guys are familiar
with what's the movie called Terrorizer or just.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Terror Yeah, terrorizing, Terrorizer, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Super gory are rated over the top schlocky death horror movie. Anyway,
if you'd like to tell us that your thoughts on
radiation are that one time that humans learned to love
radiation and stop worrying, you can email us directly at
info wwdwwdpodcast dot com or reach us on the social
media platforms if you like to support what we do.
One one thing that you can do to help with
(14:32):
that is leave us a rating and review. Because you
like us, you want other people to like us, and
we really appreciate that. It helps us a lot. You
can also go tell a friend you can just grab
their phone and subscribe to us for them. That is
helpful too, That's totally fine. Those are the things that
you can do. You can also join us on Patreon.
If you do that, you will get ad free episodes,
bonus content early episodes, you'll join the community of awesome
people that are over there, and during our full length episodes,
(14:54):
I will read the names of those people and say
thank you for helping us out. I'd also like to
say thank you to my team of people without whom
I could not make this podcast. And thank you all
for listening because I'm always happy to have ears to
speak in too, because it's like a thing that I enjoy.
I guess, yeah, anything that I am missing before we
say our goodbyes, than Shane, not today, Nope, Okay, I
think that is everything. I might be missing something, but
(15:15):
I'm just going to close it out anyway and see
what happens. So this is Abraham and this is Shane.
Why we Do what we Do? Mini is out.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.
You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
to Why we do what we do many I am
your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
(00:25):
and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk about
the things they have done and we're like, why did
we do that thing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And that's a sure why we did what we did? Yeah,
part of this podcast. The subtext of this podcast is
why we don't do what we used to do.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That is also true, and so if you're joining us
for the first time, welcome. This is a short form
episode type we do called a mini and they come
out on Mondays Mini Mondays. We also release full length
episodes closer to an hour. I think most of them
are around an hour. That those come out every Wednesday,
and sometimes we will release what we call nostalgia episodes,
which are reruns of past episodes in place of our
(01:01):
sort of normal release and that is when we update
a topic that's been out on something we recorded at
least five years ago. So that's things that we do.
But today we're tackling a very interesting topic. This is
a weird thing that humans used to do. Oh, hold on,
before I do that, I've got more preamble, which is
that if you'd like to support us, you can leave
us a rating and review, like, and subscribe, Join us
(01:23):
on Patreon, pick up some merch at our merch store.
Go tell a friend. I'll talk more about that at
the end of this discussion. Is there anything I'm missing
before we jump into our topic here?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
No, I think that covers it.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, Sorry, that was a little rambly, everybody. I'm usually
more eloquence than this. Now that's not true. This is
pretty This is pretty powerfully corded, all right. Anyway, everything
we're going to talk about in this discussion today is
really based on an entry in a book called Quackery,
A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
Sure by Nate Peterson and Lydia King. It's a very silly,
(01:57):
whimsical book. They usually take some topic and then they
sort of understand the history of it. They often will
impact them in the context of a story, and this
one I chose specifically because it actually has a fairly
clear origin, like where did this begin? And sort of
understanding why this came to be in the first place,
whereas a lot of the other ones are sort of
like it's just the thing that people discovered and then
(02:18):
they're like, hey, let's just try it out and we'll
run with it. Right, this one's a little bit more clear.
So anyway, let's dive into this discussion here.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, so, once upon a time we got really excited
about exposing ourselves to heaping loads of ionizing radiation. It
was a bad idea, and we're going to tell that story.
I will say, as a superhero fan, this sounds like
the way to go, right, Like, you get exposed to
radiation and you're going to get superpowers. Tell everybody right now,
that is not at all what happens.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, so let's unpack radiation and we'll help describe why
they think they can use this for superhero comics and
why it doesn't work that way. Radiation. Just as a
brief understanding here. I actually wrote several paragraphs trying to
explain this, and I decided that's really outside of the
context we're trying to do with this, and so I
got rid of them. But yeah, I want to at
least leave you with an understanding of what's happening here.
(03:05):
This is essentially energy that is hitting your body, or
I mean it just travels through space, but it can
hit your body on its way traveling through space. But
it's strong enough to detach the electrons in your body
from atoms or molecules in your body, which can cause
chemical changes, including damage to our DNA. The symptoms of
(03:25):
this can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, fevers, inflammation, headaches, fatigue,
and eventually hair loss, bone marrow failure, which sounds horrible, yeah,
neurological problems, blisters, gastro intestinal damage, and death. It is
a horrible, horrible way to go. Now, I think the
idea here is because it can mess with your DNA,
(03:48):
you can sort of loosely logic your way to the
idea that like, maybe you get lucky in what it
does is rearrange your DNA to be something much more
powerful than it should have been, and maybe turn you
into something that's like an altered version of yourself, albeit
with bulletproof skin. Yeah so far nope, Yeah, so far, Nope,
it has gotten that lucky. All it has done is
(04:10):
shred their bodies from the inside out. So yeah, it
is a terrible, terrible way to die, and it will
not make you superhero. But that is what radiation is.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So let's talk about Eben Byers, a wealthy industrialist socialite,
which sounds like one hundred percent a character from Great
Gatsby and a ladies man. Yeah, in early nineteen hundred,
so he's right there, right.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, he's a great Gatsby.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Maybe he is a great Gatsby. He had won the
US Amateur Golf Championship of nineteen o six, which is
just wild to think that golf is that old. Now,
during a late night Ruckus party in late November nineteen
twenty seven, he fell and injured his arm.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He did, and that's no big thing, it'll go away.
But his pain lingered much longer than seemed normal. Evidently
even for a then forty seven year old man. His
private physicians were stumped. The remedies were failing to provide
relief to his arm injury, and because of his injury,
he was having all kinds of problems. This guy was
(05:09):
truly suffering a way that most of us cannot understand.
He couldn't really play golf as well as he used to.
His loopado game was significantly compromised. I mean, really tragic stuff. Yeah,
now not to worry. We've got good news. These physicians
could double dip. They were also getting a generous seventeen
percent kickback to prescribe the hot new drug on the market, Ratithor,
(05:31):
manufactured by Bailey Radium Laboratory in New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
By the way, I don't want to eat anything out
of a radium laboratory, but.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
No, you shouldn't. Also sounds straight out of the game
Fallout or the TV show.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Like, yeah, Rada Thor is for sure evil.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yes that, Like you see that and you're like, oh yeah, Fallout,
this is a thing that will definitely kill you.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Now, this wonder drug promised
to contain two microcuries of radium, which was the exciting
new medica and the promised cures for everything from dyspepsia
to high blood pressure to impotence to apparently broken arms.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yep, that was the idea here Byers took the medicine
and lo and behold, his arms started to show improvement. Amazing.
He could not have been happier. I mean, this the
miracle medicine that really got him back on his feet.
Sure playing golf, finding partners, partners, hiring partners, maybe he
began drinking three bottles of Ratathor per day starting in
(06:32):
December of nineteen twenty seven, so remember it's November. He's
injured himself after four weeks of not healing, which of
course everyone knows that broken arms typically heal inside of
four weeks, he starts drinking this Ratathor and he's starting
to notice improvements in his arm. Bully for him. By
nineteen thirty one, just four years later, actually more like
(06:52):
three years and some change later, he had consumed a
radiation dosage similar to receiving a thousand X rays from
his consumption of Ratathor. The number one thousand is high,
It's very high. It's that's too many X rays. That's
too many X rays. You don't want to receive the
many X rays. One is like enough for them to
(07:13):
put a lead coat over you. So a thousand is
is simply too much, and so we must break and
inject some ads in the form of radiation.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
No Ratathor. Here's ada thor.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
All right, Yeah, yours was much better than mine. Adathor. Okay, great,
all right, that was our ad break. So we're back,
all right.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So Buyer's was no greedy man he wanted all of
his friends to enjoy the bounty of health that Ratathor
could bestow on them, and he began sending cases of
help to people in the circles with notes of enthusiastic praise.
It could not imagine sending effectively a radiation bomb to
like anybody, like, hey, hey, you're my best friend here,
just drink all of this. Drink one thousand x rays.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and so he managed to consume a impressive Now again,
remind I don't know if we actually said this up front.
He was prescribed like a bottle of this a day.
He's like, this is so amazing, I'm drinking three a day.
He managed to consume fifteen hundred bottles of Ratathor by
nineteen thirty one, at which time he was absolutely riddled
(08:22):
with radiation based cancers. His kidneys had completely failed, his
brain had absessed, meaning that he was kind of not
really conscious of what was going on anymore, which was
probably for the best for him. At this point. Sure,
most of his jaw had been removed and attempts to
slow the spread of cancer. Remember, he's ingesting this through
his mouth, so that's going to get the heavy dose
of cancer. There. Sure, And even his skull was covered
(08:44):
in holes from the radiation. Like he literally had holes
in his skull, which is supposed to keep your brain in.
Just in case you didn't know that, he was gaunt
and hollowed out. He weighed a scant ninety seven pounds.
Even his bones were dangerous radioactive. He was so radioactive,
radioactive that when he died, he had to be buried
(09:06):
in a lead line coffin. And even as part of this,
when they did dig him up later, he was still
so radioactive he was too dangerous to studies. They had
to put him back. That is wild.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So let's back up a little bit though, because I
think it's important to have some more historical context. So
radium had been discovered and isolated by Marie Curiy and
Pierre Currie and nineteen oh two. They also discovered that
radium could cause deep flesh burns and reason this might
be effective at destroying cancer.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, and they're right, I mean it is. It is
effective at destroying cancer. If you point radiation at cancer,
it will destroy the growing mass of cells. Sure, at
the time, there was nothing to treat cancer, so like
anything that suddenly offered a promise of a future, like
some glimmer of hope was desperately embraced by everyone. So
(09:54):
they're like, yeah, that's like we finally have something. Oh
my god, this is so excited, like the world is saved.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Sure exactly. However, there are two major problems. Right. One,
you have to aim it at the cancer, like it
has to be. It has to be given direction. Without aiming,
it just destroys everything it gets near. It's like using
ten sticks of dynamite to kill rodents in your house,
Like it'll work, but you won't have a house anymore. Two,
the other problem is the fact that it can destroy
cancer by burning it should inherently suggest that it should
(10:23):
be used in a specific, targeted way, not ingested and
allowed to spread throughout the body because you know, like
we again want to give it direction.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you're going to do surgery, like, well,
we know that knives can help get to the injured organ,
so let's just cut open all parts of your body,
Like sure, no, probably just the part way you need
to do the surgery, right exactly. We're not just trying
to de skin someone, right, that's bad, But anyway, logic
is hard and capitalism is very opportunistic, so opportunistic as
(10:52):
to be at the level of self destructive. Instead, what
they saw is can help with cancer, must be good
for everything, and the or the better.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Sure, so they sold home and even portable water tanks
infused with radium so you can get your lethal dose
of radiation at your convenience. So these were like household items.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, yeah, they had a fun name. I forgot what
it was now, but it was like a water cooler
that was a radiated water.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
They even they being like the opportunistic capitalists and entrepreneurs here,
they even established radium spas with radium infused baths and
radium gas pumped into the room where you could go
get this amazing dose of radiation. There was an entire
cottage industry of self starting entrepreneurs who traveled the country
hawking radium medicines to treat whatever you said your problem
(11:44):
just was. Fortunately, though, there is a silver lining here,
because radium was insanely expensive, so most of the time
they were lying about it containing any radium whatsoever, and
they and in doing so, they actually saved hundreds or
even thousands of lives in the process because they're charlatans.
So in this one instance, it was good to be
a charlatan because otherwise people would have died.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, finally, in the nineteen thirties, the
FDA and the FTC launched an investigation and shut down
production of radium, likely saving thousands of lives or more.
Now you don't have radium like that are like purposefully
put in products at this point, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, So it's like time and the Sun was fairly brief,
like it was kind of a five six year sort
of thing where it was it was really hot on
the market. Maybe a little longer, but they did figure
out within a generation at least that this was a
very dangerous thing that was killing people. Yeah, and to
be clear, like radiation, as we said, it is an
(12:41):
actual part of medical treatment and specifically cancer treatment used
today like this will still happen. However, again, when it
is used, it is highly precisely targeted at the cancer
and very controlled doses. The way that they sort of
thought about this earlier was like, hey, you've got cancer,
there a point radiation at it, like like put radiation
next to it, and I'm like, yeah, but what about
(13:02):
everything that's around the cancer, like that's also getting destroyed, yeah,
and also spreading more cancer because you now are destroyed,
You're you are now destroying the healthy cells in places
where you don't need to be applying it, and that
is actually then causing cancer. Yeah, so it had the
opposite problem as well that it. Yeah, anyway, that's the
(13:23):
time that humans learned to love radiation.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Briefly, what a wild time, man, Yeah, oh man, to
be in the world of the Great Gatsby would be
so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So anyway, we got to the y, which was that
they understood that it helped with cancer, therefore must be
good with everything, and therefore this guy died of acute
radiation sickness in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
All right, anything you'd like to add or anything that
I forgot before we wrap this one up.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Toxic Avenger is coming out, so.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, oh man, that looks insane. Ye. Not affiliated with
Marvel In case you hear the word Avengure and think.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Ye, yeah, it's Peter Inglish and that's Peter Diningklige and
Kevin Bacon. So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, And I'm not sure if you guys are familiar
with what's the movie called Terrorizer or just.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Terror Yeah, terrorizing, Terrorizer, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Super gory are rated over the top schlocky death horror movie. Anyway,
if you'd like to tell us that your thoughts on
radiation are that one time that humans learned to love
radiation and stop worrying, you can email us directly at
info wwdwwdpodcast dot com or reach us on the social
media platforms if you like to support what we do.
One one thing that you can do to help with
(14:32):
that is leave us a rating and review. Because you
like us, you want other people to like us, and
we really appreciate that. It helps us a lot. You
can also go tell a friend you can just grab
their phone and subscribe to us for them. That is
helpful too, That's totally fine. Those are the things that
you can do. You can also join us on Patreon.
If you do that, you will get ad free episodes,
bonus content early episodes, you'll join the community of awesome
people that are over there, and during our full length episodes,
(14:54):
I will read the names of those people and say
thank you for helping us out. I'd also like to
say thank you to my team of people without whom
I could not make this podcast. And thank you all
for listening because I'm always happy to have ears to
speak in too, because it's like a thing that I enjoy.
I guess, yeah, anything that I am missing before we
say our goodbyes, than Shane, not today, Nope, Okay, I
think that is everything. I might be missing something, but
(15:15):
I'm just going to close it out anyway and see
what happens. So this is Abraham and this is Shane.
Why we Do what we Do? Mini is out.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.